Whodunit Column by Bruce Tierney

For the serious mystery junky (among whose numbers I count myself), it is a major event when a new installment by an old friend hits the stands. We comb the reviews, searching for advance news of the latest Dave Robicheaux, Elvis Cole, or Kinsey Millhone. We scope out the authors' websites and count the weeks until the release of the next Stephanie Plum, Matt Scudder, or Harry Bosch. This...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Horsing around Robert B. Parker sends Spenser into an equine environment in Hugger Mugger. But here the emphasis is definitely on finding the perps and piecing together a complicated puzzle. Someone has been shooting horses at Three Fillies Stable in LaMar, Georgia, for no apparent reason, and wealthy owner Walter Clive would like our Boston-based-brainy-bruiser to find out who it is. But,...

The latest Robert B. Parker novel, Hugger Mugger, finds our hero Spenser in rural Georgia, far afield from his home turf of Boston. For some obscure reason, someone has been killing racehorses belonging to Walter Clive, southern Renaissance man and all-around rich dude. Clive's stable houses Hugger Mugger, the horse touted as the next Secretariat, and Clive wants to ensure that no harm comes to...

Perhaps no one is more well known or respected as a modern day master of crime fiction than Robert B. Parker. Like Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett, Parker has mastered the art of the hardboiled detective novel. He is best known for his tough but sensitive Boston private investigator Spenser. He has written over 20 Spenser novels, which spawned the 1980s television show Spenser: For Hire....

Audio Column by Wes Breazeale

Perhaps no one is more well known or respected as a modern day master of crime fiction than Robert B. Parker. Like Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett, Parker has mastered the art of the hardboiled detective novel. He is best known for his tough but sensitive Boston private investigator Spenser. He has written over 20 Spenser novels, which spawned the 1980s television show Spenser: For Hire....

Robert B. Parker has been writing Spenser novels for a quarter century now, and, let's face it, his wise-cracking, hard-hitting, classics-spouting hero is getting a little long in the tooth. It seems only natural that Parker would want to introduce a new hero to his readers, even as he continues Spenser's adventures. That the hero is part of the Spenser milieu makes it easier to get to know...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Don't know how I missed Robert Parker's first Jesse Stone mystery novel. Though I've always had a smoldering thing for Spenser (fictional hunks are safe!), I should have tuned into the new guy on the Parker block--he's cool, courageous, svelte, and savvy, with a sufficient number of flaws to make him appealing. Add to that his leading role as police chief in a niftily plotted,...